The notebooks

Wednesday

Jul 11, 2012 at 12:01 AMJul 11, 2012 at 11:59 AM

Jennifer Nicole Sullivan l Mercury

On Sept. 11, 2001, Nichole Bernier lost one of her good friends when American Airlines Flight 11 slammed into the North Tower of the World Trade Center. Bernier’s friend (her family wishes not to publicize her name) was a new mother taking her first business trip after maternity leave from Boston to Los Angeles.

When Bernier, a magazine journalist and longtime contributing editor with Condé Nast Traveler, helped the grieving family field media phone calls, she was left meditating on the question, “How well do we really know the people in our lives?”

“I was really awed and humbled by the experience of defining someone’s life in sound bites,” said Bernier, who developed a few quotes that mentioned her friend’s “flaming red hair” and “ridiculous laugh.” “I couldn’t help wondering if those were the ways that she would have wanted to be described.”

This question about legacy and what we leave behind when we die is the motivation behind Bernier’s debut novel, “The Unfinished Work of Elizabeth D.,” a poignant story about loss, motherhood, friendship and the secrets we keep from loved ones.

It’s the summer of 2002, when post-9/11 fear is still palpable. Kate’s friend Elizabeth had died nearly a year before in an unrelated plane crash, and she inherits a trunk of Elizabeth’s journals — instead of the widowed husband. As Kate and her family vacation on Great Rock Island, the mother-of-two diligently reads her friend’s journals from the beginning as requested. At first, Kate expects the journals to contain typical mom minutiae, but she soon learns about Elizabeth’s tragic childhood, unrealized career dreams and a mysterious man linked to Elizabeth’s travel plans the day she died.

While the characters and events are fictional, the real post-9/11 anxiety felt in the U.S. in 2002 creates a rumbling undercurrent of tension in the book. Kate, who stores extra food in her SUV just in case, attempts to deal with her fears and protect her family from a world of uncertainty. Surprisingly, some publishers discouraged Bernier from weaving 9/11 into her story — they felt that a debut novelist shouldn’t handle such a powerful subject. But she took that risk.

“That time meant too much to me. I knew what it was like to be a new mother in that very uncertain time,” said the married mother-of-five based just outside of Boston. “It was such a fascinating time period.”

Bernier seamlessly weaves Elizabeth’s dated journal entries with Kate’s present day to show parallels the friends never knew they shared. They both struggle with sacrificing their careers for motherhood and both deal with husbands who are gone too often. After six years of writing the novel and now traveling nationwide for a busy book tour, Bernier understands the sacrifices it takes to balance a career and motherhood.

“It’s not easy,” said Bernier, who also co-founded the literary website www.BeyondThe

Margins.com. “I’m laughing with you, but you should see the laundry pile at home…”

On Friday, July 13, Bernier stops on Aquidneck Island to give a reading and book signing at Island Books. A few months ago, Bernier’s mom, Sandra (a Newport resident with Bernier’s father, Ron), stopped into Island Books to drop off a galley and press kit to garner attention for the book.

“I read (and loved!) this book that might not otherwise have made it to my pile,” wrote Island Books owner Judy Crosby in a recent newsletter.

Bernier, who’s new to public speaking, gave her first practice reading at a Boston-area senior citizens’ home. She figured it would be a forgiving audience since “people probably wouldn’t remember who I was.” As she read, folks were asleep, expectant, agitated or drooly. The old-timers eventually perked up when she told them how she inherited her grandfather’s World War II-era typewriter that he’d rescued when his boat was sunk by a German U-boat off the coast of Point Judith, R.I.

“It’s really one of my most prized possessions,” said the 44-year-old.

A writer to the core, Bernier — who’s lived in Boston, Connecticut, Illinois, New York City and Washington, D.C. — has maintained a journal most of her life. But unlike her character Elizabeth D., who wants to be understood through her journals, Bernier has a different plan for her personal writings.

“I’ve left a casual notation in our will for someone that they should probably destroy them,” said Bernier, who’s started working on a historical fiction novel set in 1980s Soviet Union. “I don’t have a need for anyone to see them or do something with them. I just want them gone.”

Never miss a story

Choose the plan that's right for you.
Digital access or digital and print delivery.